Submit and Surrender (23 page)

It was so much easier to feel angry, and it didn’t do her any damn good.

“That’s not all that’s been upsetting you,” Ford said.

Adra stiffened in his arms. He felt her stop breathing, start again.

“But let that go for now,” he went on. “Just know that I’m not going anywhere.
Anywhere
. You got that?”

Adra was too quiet.

“Adra,” he said.

“That’s not necessarily true,” she said quietly. “People have hurt you. They’ve lost you.”

Ford blinked.

“You’re talking about Claudia?”

Adra sighed softly. “Yeah.”

What in the actual fuck? Ford wasn’t usually stumped about what was going on inside Adra’s head, but this was like be smacked in the face with a freaking mackerel. Comparing herself to Claudia made no goddamn sense.

“You are not a cheater,” Ford said.

“And we don’t have that kind of relationship,” Adra added, sitting up to look at him. “But it’s just…I know it’s complicated, but…”

She looked down for a second, and he missed her brown eyes. And when she looked back up, Ford could tell that she knew there was more.

She knew there was something he wasn’t telling her.

He felt that pang of grief he always felt when he thought about Andrew, only this time, it was different. This time it felt, for a second, like a thing that kept him from Adra. He hated that.
Hated
it.

And he couldn’t fucking tell her.

He looked at Adra’s sweet face, thought about how hard this had all been for her, to be this vulnerable and come this far, and how she still didn’t want to talk about what they really were…and all he could think was how much more freaked out she would be if he told her about the child he almost had.

~ * ~ * ~

Well, this was unexpected.

She’d done it. Somehow she’d pushed ahead and jumped off a cliff—ok, a mini-cliff, the smallest cliff she could find—and she’d told Ford about Charlie, and the world hadn’t ended.

It hadn’t ended, but it had confirmed one thing: she felt immeasurably better having confided in Ford about Charlie. Like she’d stopped wearing the wrong size shoes or something. He was her best friend, after all.

And it wasn’t like she’d gone ahead and confessed everything that had been stressing her out, because wow, that would be crazy. She hadn’t just casually dropped bombs about maybe, possibly already being in love with him and how that would ruin everything. Or about how deathly afraid she was of losing him. Or about how no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t think of a way that this situation ended well, because in the end, Ford deserved to be happy, and if Adra couldn’t give him what he deserved because she was such a mess…

But Adra was kicking all those habitual, worrisome thoughts aside now that she was looking at Ford while he very clearly kept some worries of his own to himself.

Part of her wanted to laugh. She wondered if it was this obvious when
she
kept stuff from
him
, and if so, how they’d both managed to avoid being main characters in a comedy of manners so far. It was ridiculous. She could
see
it in his eyes.

What a terrible liar. Call that a quality, though.

And, bonus: This gave her something else to think about. She wasn’t panicking about how making love with Ford had been the most honest experience of her life, or about how the rules she’d so carefully insisted upon had pretty much gone out the window, or about anything else.

She was thinking about what had really happened with Ford’s marriage.

And while part of her wanted to laugh at how ridiculous they both were, another part of her managed to be both simultaneously hurt
and
relieved for the exact same reasons. Namely: here he was being all distant again, and that sucked, but wasn’t it safer? If she was never pressed, if he didn’t push her into admitting what she really felt, maybe she really could do this best friends thing. Right?

Best friends who had amazing, perception-altering sex. She could totally do that, right?

What was it they said—‘fake it ’til you make it?’

“You don’t have to tell me about what happened,” Adra finally said, and still couldn’t tell if she was hoping he would or if she was hoping he wouldn’t. “Boundaries are good.”

On the plus side, she was getting pretty used to feeling like a total nutcase, so she had that going for her.

“Adra…” Ford said, and she let herself savor that deep, low rumble, because she looked at him and knew he was far away.

She didn’t have to suffer that long, though. When Ford’s phone rang at the side of the bed, Adra practically leaped for it.

“It’s for you,” she said, smiling up at him as she handed him the receiver. She’d actually sprawled across his hard, muscled body to get at the phone. She didn’t plan to move.

Ford grinned, took the phone, and then pulled away her sheet.

She was naked from the waist up again, and he was going to take full advantage of it. Adra sighed as his hands played lightly with her breasts. What was it about being fondled by a man who was otherwise occupied? She didn’t know, but whatever it was, it was magic.

So she noticed when it stopped.

Adra looked up. Ford’s expression had changed. It had gone dark. Medieval. Like the expression he’d had that first day of shooting, when he’d gone after Derrick…

“You’ve confirmed this?” Ford said into the phone. “I’ll need to meet you at the club in an hour. Bring whatever materials you have.”

Adra watched him carefully as he cradled her in one arm, and leaned over to hang up the phone with the other. She’d almost never seen him so upset.

“Ford, what happened?” she asked.

“That was the private investigator I hired,” Ford said, gently covering her with the sheet, bringing her closer before tucking her into the bed as he got out. He quickly pulled on some jeans and a t-shirt, his face serious.

“Private investigator?” Adra asked. What the hell was he talking about?

Ford looked at her like she was a very precious, very breakable thing.

“He knows who’s responsible for all the security leaks,” he said.

Ford was on a fucking
tear
.

Adra was at home. Adra was safe at home, and yes it was a goddamn home, it was
their
home now, whatever anybody called it, and that was where she was staying, because it was safe.

He had put his foot down on that one. And then he’d still had to remind her that if he didn’t know she was safe, under the circumstances, no one else would be safe, either, and that was a very bad idea.

She’d relented.

“But only because I don’t really want to see him,” she’d said. She’d laughed a little. “I’m not even surprised.”

Ford had said nothing.

“What are you going to do?” she’d asked.

“Fix it,” he said.

“Ford, you can’t fix it,” she’d said.

“I can damn well try.”

Which was bullshit, obviously, and they both knew that what was done was already done. But fuck, did Ford want to make just
one
thing in her life better. He’d only realized once he was halfway out the door that there might be more than one way to do that.

He’d stopped dead in his tracks, turned around, and looked her in the eye.

“Tell me you need me to stay and I won’t go anywhere,” he’d said.

Adra, still wrapped up in his sheets like a present—good God, that woman, with her hair all messed up and curling around her shoulders—reached up, and rubbed her thumb along his chin.

“Will you think less of me if I say that I might actually enjoy it a little bit if you scared the crap out of him?” she’d asked.

“No.”

“I’m pretty tired of the filming anyway.”

“Yeah.”

“And you’ll come back soon?” she’d said, biting her lip.

He could practically feel the heat of her body. He’d gripped the doorframe with punishing force.

“God, yes,” he’d said.

He’d come back. He’d figure out what to do next, he’d figure out how to deal with what had changed between them, he’d blow off steam. He’d make sure this movie never had the power to hurt her again. And then he’d come back and show her everything he felt.

Which was why he was speeding. Or had been, until he’d hit Venice, and now he was stuck in traffic. It was that damn broken stoplight again, the one on Abbot Kinney right by Volare. Looked like there was another accident.

Ford did not have the patience for this.

He turned his truck down a side street, locked it, and ran the rest of the way.

When he got to Volare he was sweating slightly, his blood was pumping, and he could feel the adrenaline start to surge. Normally this would be where he’d take a step back, tell himself to watch it. Normally.

Ford stopped a startled production assistant in his tracks and loomed over him.

“Tell me where Derrick Duvall is,” Ford said.

It wasn’t the kind of question a PA was supposed to answer, necessarily, even if he knew the answer. This one stammered it out immediately.

“Upstairs in his dressing room,” the PA said. “He doesn’t have a call for another hour.”

“It’s not his goddamn dressing room,” Ford growled. “It’s a playroom. He was borrowing it.”

He took the stairs two at a time.

The door was unlocked, which was good, because Ford would have hated to break it. And Derrick, not the quickest on the uptake, was sprawled out on the couch, one foot on the ground, only half-awake.

“What the hell, man?” he said. “I was taking a nap.”

Ford closed the door behind him.

“Get up,” he said, walking toward the lazy movie star.

“Dude, what is with—”

“I said get up,” Ford said, and hurled Derrick off the couch. “You’re going to stand up so I can knock you back down again, as many goddamn times as I feel like. Stand
up
.”

Derrick jumped to his feet, doing his best to posture with his shoulders back, his chest out, like he was a big man. He looked ridiculous.

“What the hell is your problem, man?”

“I know,” Ford said. “I know it was you, Derrick.”

There was a silence.

Derrick chewed on his lip, watched Ford. Ford waited. He wanted an explanation before he dealt with Derrick. He wanted something to bring back to Adra.

“Well, so the fuck what?” Derrick finally said.

Ford clenched his fists and took another step forward. “You leak the location of the shoot, you spread false rumors about your relationship with Adra, you make her home unsafe, you put her in actual danger, and you still don’t understand why I’m going to beat the shit out of you?”

“You don’t have the balls,” Derrick sneered.

Ford just smiled.

“You touch me, and my lawyers will have a field day,” Derrick said.

Ford smiled again. He fucking loved his law degree. “Lawyers don’t scare me. I know too many of them.”

Derrick ran a hand through his hair and laughed.

“You know how much publicity this got for the movie? For your stupid club?”

“For
you
,” Ford said. “It got a lot of publicity for you.”

“Yeah, that’s right. That’s my job. I play the goddamn game. Jesus, how naive can you be?”

“You better start talking,” Ford said. Now there was just an end table between them. Ford kicked it aside. “The only way I get to fix the damage you’ve done is if I
know
what you’ve done, so fucking
talk
, you piece of shit.”

“I already told you,” Derrick said.

“I’m not just talking about the leaks,” Ford said.

The look on Derrick’s face really deserved to be punched. Ford opened and closed his fists, and kept it steady.

“Tell me what happened between you and Adra,” Ford said.

“You want to
know
?” Derrick said. “You kinky son of a bitch.”

That was it.

Ford grabbed Derrick by his two hundred-dollar shirt and threw him against the wall like a rag doll. Derrick worked out, but he did it for appearance; Ford lifted for performance. It was almost embarrassingly easy.

It was embarrassing in general, if Ford were being honest. He knew Adra would be horrified if he lost control. With immense effort, he reined himself in again.

Of course, Derrick didn’t need to know about that.

“Derrick, I know I give off an impression of cold reserve,” Ford said, cracking his knuckles. “And normally I am a consummate white collar professional. But I didn’t grow up that way. And where I’m from, we have very specific ways of dealing with people who hurt family. You wouldn’t believe the shit I’d get from my brothers if they knew you still had all your teeth,” Ford said, shaking his head. “I haven’t beaten down anybody who deserved it in a long time. But don’t for a fucking second think that means I’ve forgotten how.”